Fundamental to the ideal development of a child or young adult is an ability to perceive and react to his or her surroundings. Parents and teachers monitor the development of a child by observing the child's ability to perceive changes in the environment and suitably respond or adapt to the changes. For example, one of the noted milestones in the early stages of infancy occurs when the infant develops the ability to follow a person or an object with the eyes.
It is not uncommon that a normally developed individual becomes involved in some catastrophic event which necessitates that these fundamental skills be relearned. Therapy, often prolonged and difficult, is necessary for the individual to resume his/her place in society. Examples of such persons include victims of automobile accidents and wounded veterans. In these situations rehabilitation is necessary. In some instances the individual will never return fully to their former capacities. This then, involves a reeducation of the individual such that with their limitations, they can be most effective in coping with their environment and lead a fruitful life. Other individuals, handicapped or possessing subnormal or underdeveloped perceptual motor skills represent a significant segment of our community. A need exists for training aids that will facilitate the learning process in these situations.
Although several unique disciplines merit consideration; childhood development, handicapped and rehabilitation therapy, sports, and recreation all have the same foundation in motor skills. The principles of teaching motor skills remains the same; the application of these principles can be quite diverse. Researchers state that to teach perceptual and perceptual motor skills the learner must start slowly, develop a skill level, then move on to the next level of proficiency. As an individual's proficiency increases, the training must include increasingly difficult teaching exercises. Once a high performance level is achieved, the individual requires constant practice to maintain this high skill level.
Thus a device for teaching motor skills must be versatile enough to teach the unskilled, stimulate the average individual, and challenge the professional. Specifically, the device must teach the kinesthetic and mechanical factors of motor skills for a particlar discipline to a broad spectrum of skill levels. The device must offer success to every user, regardless of skill level, yet challenge every user to advance to their next higher level of proficiency.
Simple exercises such as pointing and following a moving object, jumping when the object moves and standing still when it stops, or performing certain directed activities linked to the behavior of an object, assist in the development of motor skills, adaptability and attentiveness.
Depth perception, peripheral vision and hearing capacities may also be improved through various exercises with a moving object having specific attachments. All of these skills are necessary for proper development and leading an active normal life.
Motor skills are divided into three factors; kinesthetic, mechanical and motivational. The kinesthetic factor involves the cognitive awareness of the temporal-spatial relationship of time, force and space, more commonly known as the "feel" or "touch" of an object. Time relates to a continuum from slow to fast. Force relates to a continuum from slight to heavy; referred to as degree or intensity. Space has two continuums, level and range. Level is either high or low; range is either short or long.
The mechanical factors involve speed, accuracy, form and adaptability. Researchers explain that there is significant difference in brain activity while performing the same activity but at different speeds. The speed of the activity determines which "neural programs" will be called into action. Accuracy is a classic measure of success. Again, it is known that a considerable difference exists in the muscle tone required for an accurate kick or pass as opposed to a powerful kick or pass. Form relates to economy of effort and has two implications: one is a more relaxed, smoother performance and is referred to as "finesse." In the other, the individual devotes less time to the action itself, allowing him to become more observant of environmental queues and is able to respond to those queues. Adaptability relates to this capacity to perform an activity in a changing environment.
In order to teach skills, a third set of factors are necessary; namely, motivational factors. The motivational factors consist of attentiveness, incentive for improvement, measurement of improvement and feedback or knowledge of results.
Attentiveness requires an individual to devote his undivided attention to the training activity. As to incentive, there must be some challenge to the individual to advance to the next level of proficiency. Measurement of performance requires that there be some method of determining improvement in performance. Feedback in the context of the present invention relates to imparting to the individual knowledge of the results. This knowledge is considered by researchers in motor skills to be the single most important factor in learning.
As stated, the factors of perceptual and perceptual motor skills span a broad spectrum of disciplines. (These include such fundamentals as walking and stopping to fine motor control such as propelling an object through a fast moving target). These include child development, therapy, rehabilitation, research, special education, athletics and amusement.
The following exemplifies various applications of perceptual motor and motor skills in various disciplines.
In early childhood pattern recognition, time-space relationship, three dimensional motion, depth perception, hand-eye control, walking motion patterns, stop/start motion, and attentiveness training are developed.
Therapy and rehabilitation often include visual training, pacing studies, directional changes, non-locomotor patterns, locomotor patterns, visual tracking, word recognition and impulse control measured motor response for walking and limb movement, coordination exercises, visual training, attention span exercises, queued exercises and treating depth perception problems.
The complexities in motor skills in athletics range from situations where the player is stationary and the ball is stationary, such as golf, to situations where the player moves while the ball or puck is moving as in soccer or hockey. The concepts of movement; performing in a changing environment; the dynamics of motion, with or without a ball are an integral part of most sports. Thus athletics involve; motion patterns for any age group, as well as any skill level, a moving target for any age group or skill level, directional changes, stop/start patterns and attentiveness training.